 Hello, Ohio University alumni, other members of the Ohio University community and anyone else who happened to stumble onto this special homecoming 2020 Ohio University Archives video presentation of a somewhat brief and very random history of student expression on Ohio University's campus, 1812 to 2018. I am Ohio University Archivist Bill Kimock and I have just a few words for all of you before we take off with this presentation. Although the title implies that this will only be about student expression for the first 200 years plus of OU's existence, much of the film also includes oversight of, expectations for and reactions to student expression on campus by Ohio University officials during that same period. Indeed the presentation begins with the very first rules for student behavior and expression and ends with the most recent rules regarding student behavior and expression. I also wanted you to know that I know that there is a lot more to this story, but we are not writing a book here so things will be left out which possibly some of you will think should have been included. Even if I made this a 2 or 3 hour thing there would be lots of stuff that would have to be left out. But I have it whittled down to 47 or 48 minutes hoping to spare everyone from having to listen to me drone on for a ponderously seemingly endless time. Which may occur anyway. Anyway with all of that said, thank you for being here and let's get this thing started. The history of student expression in Ohio University's officials attempts to regulate student expression began as early as March 18, 2012, three years before the first class of students had ever graduated from OU, when the University Board of Trustees laid out the very first rules that would govern Ohio University's student behavior. Important for our purposes this evening is that one-third of the university's first 16 resolutions laid out by the board regarding student behavior specifically related to student expression in one way or another. Resolution three, for instance, stated that no Ohio University student should possess or exhibit any indecent picture nor purchase nor read in the university any lascivious, impious or religious book or ballot, nor sing or repeat verses of like character. And if any student should be convicted of lying or profanity he shall be punished according to the nature and heinousness of the offenses. Resolution four, stated that if any student shall quarrel with, insult or abuse a fellow student or any person whatever he shall be punished. Resolution seven, stated that modesty, civility and due respect were required of Ohio University students and that if any student shall either in speech or action manifest disrespect toward the university president he shall be admonished and either make due acknowledgement to the offended party or be suspended from the university. Resolution 10 also addressed student expression by banning hollering, whistling, jumping or any other boisterous or tumultuous noise from apartments of the university. And finally and perhaps somewhat oddly another limitation to student expression came in resolution number 11. Remember please that for the first 60 years plus of Ohio University's existence students were exclusively men and when these rules were laid out by the board there may be just a handful of men attending the university at the time. Nevertheless here's resolution number 11, which stated that no student shall disguise himself by wearing women's apparel or in any other way under such penalty as the president and the board may see caused to inflict. As a side note none of us has any idea why the OU Board of Trustees thought it was important to make this resolution one of the first 16 rules of the university but there you have it. Later during the 1840s the rules governing student behavior were updated. The enrollment at OU was still male but nothing was written in these new rules about dressing up as women so we can assume that either the fad among college students at OU had passed or perhaps the board of trustees members of the mid 19th century had just become more progressive. Nevertheless the updated rules still warn students to avoid profanity obscenity and vulgarity, to observe polite and decorous deportment toward each other and other persons, to observe cleanliness in person and in dress and to give testimony when called on by the faculty concerning irregularities and transgressions of the college order. However despite these warnings as enrollment grew, reprimand suspensions and expulsions increased throughout the 1830s and 1840s. In 1840 a student expressed his displeasure over his grades by filling the halls of Cutler with moan grass. Another student was found to have insulted a citizen and a company of ladies and he was dismissed. Other students were found guilty and punished for scribbling on college building walls and still others for conversing in a grossly profane and infidel nature. In the 1890s the faculty expressed its concerns about boisterous cheering and college yells that took place in lectures, recitals and assembly halls and in 1907 there came a description of an incident in which the members of two main literary societies, the Athenians and the Philomathians were saying derisive songs and yelling disparaging chants toward one another. As we move into the 20th century we find the students of course have had no trouble finding other ways of expressing themselves on OU's campus, sometimes in surprising ways and in surprising places. Here's one of those surprising places. The so-called kissing circle is at the intersection of brick pass on a college green. According to tradition this intersection roughly formed a circle where any man could kiss any woman who was passing through at the same time. One wonders how many OU women either totally avoided this part of campus during the day and night or if they could not avoid it on their way to Chubb Library or the next class, waited until the coast was clear before they made their mad desperate dash for the circle and onto safety. Nevertheless the kissing circle is popular in today and beyond being a place to kiss it eventually evolved into a spot in which students rather than having a physical encounter might leave a painted message anonymous or otherwise noting their affection for someone else on campus. Moreover the area around the kissing circle could be painted by anyone at any time and later in other decades to kissing circle area evolved to being a spot where various organizations and groups painted their various announcements and concerns. Meanwhile as long as we are discussing ways in which OU students have publicly expressed their affection for one another here's an image of the so-called graffiti wall which while today is more often used for student social and political expression it was also once a place for expression of personal affection. I'm making a bigger deal over student publicly expressing their affection for one another than you might imagine because apparently how students express their affection for one another in public became of increasingly significant concern to OU administrators. Going back at least to the mid 1940s when his term as OU president began Ohio University President John Calhoun Baker and his wife Elizabeth attempted to discourage public expression of affection often referred to in brief as PDA on the University campus. The Baker's have become so concerned about this matter that an OU student handbooks at the time students were warned that public display of affection sold their reputations especially the women's reputations among their peers in the public. But the Baker's were not the only Athens dignitaries who found such expression to be unsightly. As some of OU's alum might have heard or perhaps as some alum might have experienced themselves the grounds of the Athens asylum provided a peaceful quiet semi-private retreat for OU couples who were banned by OU social rules from engaging in intimate physical contact on campus. Well perhaps it was not so private after all. Here's a letter from Athens asylum superintendent C.H. Creed to President Baker in 1948. It states that we have always welcomed the students of Ohio University to come to the grounds of the hospital but the conduct of certain students has become nothing short of obnoxious. Superintendent Creed goes on in paragraph three to inform President Baker that on warm days the boys and girls flock over here and lie around literally on top of each other with so few clothes on that in driving through the grounds one would think it was the Naked City. By the way for those who do not know this the motion picture called the Naked City was out and very popular in 1948 which was when this letter was written hence the reference. Anyway the asylum superintendent goes on in this letter to the president to state that the conduct of the students is disgusting and repulsive some of them having sexual intercourse and broad daylight in full view of the walks and drives throughout the asylum. He repeats that he is happy to have the students visiting the grounds of the asylum but only if they as he writes can conduct themselves in a manner comparable to that of our mentally ill patients. As many of you probably know already because maybe some of you are around for it concern of how OU students express their affection for one another in public did not die with the 40s and 50s. If the contents of student handbooks or any indication this matter was still a pretty big deal to OU administrators at least into the early part of the 1960s and since the handbooks also contained plenty of information related to other means of student expression perhaps this is a good time to examine those interesting artifacts of Ohio University history a little closer because as most of you know student expression on college campuses took on a whole other life in the 1960s as college students everywhere began questioning the society in which they were raised and presently living consequently the university reacted by constantly modifying its rules governing student expression to try to keep up with the times while at the same time welcoming thousands more students as enrollment began to take off. Perhaps of greatest concern to parents and to the university was how the parents of college aged women would react to these changing times and sending their daughters off to college as a reaction to this and perhaps as a recruitment measure Ohio University began publishing separate handbooks for men and women and there were some very interesting differences even just starting with the titles of the handbooks here is the title page in the men's handbook for 1964-1965 it is titled you the college man and one might fairly expect the handbook for OU females to be titled you the college woman right but no here it is and it is titled simply you the co-ed some might suggest the implication being that while the men were grown mature college students the women were considered as being something other than that and as one might suspect the differences between the university's expectations for OU men and women and how they might express themselves to not end with the titles of these respective handbooks here on this page in the first line under general university regulations the university tells its male students that a college man has many things but above all else he is a scholar that sounds reasonable right let's see if there's a similar statement about college women in their handbooks well here it is on page 13 under Ohio's co-ed the most important thing about being a college woman is being a lady so okay there you have it the manner to be scholars the women are to be ladies maybe you can also see at the bottom of this handbook page where it says social tips once again women were implored not to express themselves in their romantic relationships openly and they were schooled in proper ways of addressing their elders these are all one way or another forms of personal expression which the university hoped not to regulate then at least a coax women toward expressing themselves as though they were candidates for a catillion or debutant event rather than as being students hoping to get a good academic education at o u meanwhile i'm not showing you the equivalent of these behavioral expectations in the men's handbook because there was no such equivalent in the men's handbooks in fact much of the long lists that were included in the women's handbooks regarding how they should behave and express themselves were either excluded or at least considerably abbreviated in the men's handbook here's one good example in the men's expected dress standards in their handbook just a few lines are included informing the men that collared shirts and long pants along with shoes and socks are expected every day except sundays when ties and coats should be worn that's pretty much it for the men otherwise their freedom of expressing themselves by what they wore was left up to them reasonably but what about college women well so it turns out that ohio university women had dressed coats for just about every meal every day of the week and it took nearly two pages to tell them this not only were their dress coats for classes and meals but also for sun bathing and teas and dances and movie nights meanwhile pin curlers and rollers and scarves should not be worn in lounges dining halls or anywhere on campus outside of their rooms if becoming acquainted with their dress expectations was not demoralizing enough for the women the next section of the rules immediately informed them that even if they had some freedom in expressing themselves in their chosen attire in public the time in which they could do this outside of their residence halls was limited as you could see in the next session a handbook on the next page regulation hours it details the time in which these college age women are allowed outside of their halls according to these rules women must be in their residence halls by anywhere from 10 to 11 on weeknights depending on their years in college and by 12 30 a.m on weekends except for special occasions such as jay problems when they get stout until 1 30 a.m in all cases women must not leave their residence halls until after 7 a.m i looked for a similar section in the men's handbook but there was no such curfew for men again i bring this up in this presentation because this was a limitation on how students in ou could express themselves even regulating when at least half the student population could do so by the way i've heard rumors that women develop methods of circumventing these hours rules especially maybe some of you who were here for that time could share with us some of your memories of that in our mapping memories exercise whatever way women took matters into their own hands covertly perhaps again circumventing those rules as you will see in later in a later slide women officially took matters to their own hands later in the 1960s and got the curfew rescinded moving along now any report on the history of student expression at ohaw University would be irresponsibly incomplete without some mentioning of student written expression the student newspapers are excellent examples of representation of student expressions throughout the 20th and so far the 21st century here are just a very few examples of student expression as they were printed by the green and white which was the predecessor to the post in these examples from the 1930s you could see that students were protesting war they were protesting against the existence of an rotc on campus which mostly came about in as a result of the forming of the seven college system and then they were also protesting about how faculty had been criticizing student reviews of performances and recitals meanwhile here is the post reporting on race issues and discrimination in Athens at ohaw University which were more more prevalent as more african-americans moved from the south to the north they're in the great migration the post has continued throughout the years to be a spokes vehicle for student expression and a catalyst for fomenting student expression in its editorials the post and its green and white predecessor employed a lot of fine writers who've gone out to make their mark in journalism one way or another and as such would be worthy of their own history in fact there are several other student publications that could be mentioned here however for the purpose of moving along through this brief presentation we have to be selective and so we'll just mention one more student publication mostly because it's so much fun to talk about it not all student publications reported on the news and commented on the news straightforwardly as the green and white and then as the post some student publications use satire to express themselves such as this one called the hangover which was reportedly published on doomsday and this was reportedly volume four courts and of course the issue here was prohibition and the students what the students thought of prohibition one of the longest lasting and possibly the most popular student publication of its time in ohio university other than the green and white and the post the green goat was often the center of controversy and usually by choice was satire being its writers preferred form of expressing themselves and their concerns about national and local and ohio university matters first published in 1913 with this as its first cover the green goat was above all else intended as a humor magazine and as far as i can tell it was the first absolutely independent student publication at ohio university which means that the students who published it hired and paid their staff independent of university support did all of its own design all of its own writing and basically published independently of any university political strings rules of financial aid the focus of the magazine clearly is to express its writer's opinion as satire while pushing the boundaries and some might argue pushing sometimes beyond contemporary boundaries of humor of the time making the green goat more attractive its covers and interior drawings were wonderfully artistically creative here in the late 1920s you see a cover that is mocking prohibition and later on at the end of the roaring 20s another cover asks the question is sex necessary which seems pretty tame to us today but most certainly would have been scandalous especially as a cover for a student magazine in 1930 the green goat staff prided themselves on the spectrum of issues they could mock and just about any subject and area of ohio college life and culture was fair game for the magazine writers and illustrators the green goat even mocked its own tenuous relationship with the university as you can see by page one of this issue where the green goat proudly proclaims that this magazine is not a recognized publication of ohio university but to show that the goat holds no grudges ohio university is still a recognized institution of the green goat it's predictable then that the green goat's jokes and satire about sex and drinking and its relationship with the university on ohio's campus were just the start of it members of an anti-establishment publication such as the green goat were not about to suffer gladly administrators that they perceived as being strict and straight laced one such administrator who ended up taking a lot of playful heat from the green goat was ohio university's dean of men moral hunkins famous among students on ohio's campus as being a no-nonsense and strict disciplinarian dean hunkins was known to many ohio students sometimes as moral moral and in other times as dean humbug and so in this mid-1950s green goat the writers apparently thought it was great fun in depicting the dean as Adolf Hitler allegedly enjoying and i'm quoting from the article a fine ohio post editorial title conformity a positive force in university society as you can see in the same issue of the green goat ohio's police staff also came in for some sharp green goat satire as the goat included an illustration of a so of a nazi military parade but instead gave it the caption campus police exhibit the forward look with shiny new cars and other disciplinary equipment before i go further just a few words in defense of dean hunkins he responded in writing to president bakers concern about this issue the green goat writing that it really was not such a big deal to him and he thought that the green goat would have to go a lot further in the way of vulgarity for it to become a candidate for censorship this was not characteristic of the dean for the earlier 1950s they had written passionately to the president expressing his concerns as so-called McCarthyism had the possibility of shutting down free expression on college campuses and of course this was not an empty concern on college campuses during the 1950s as our exploration of student expression on ohio's campus will demonstrate the issue of free speech and expression really took off on college campuses across the country during the 1950s and early 1960s especially after ohio state university instituted its famous resolution prohibiting the appearance of certain speakers from its campus allegedly concerning itself with national security ohio state university's board trustees ruled in september 1951 that osu's president could bar any speaker he wished to bar from addressing students on campus ohio state's decision to squelch public expression became known widely across the country on college campuses as the gag rule at least somewhat likely because of osu's geographic proximity to Athens in 1962 newly installed ohio president verne r alton was frequently asked by students during the fall of his first year as ohio's president to take a position on the issue of outside campus speakers coming to the Athens campus but before pronouncing a verdict in this matter president alton and his staff did their homework and in doing so they relied heavily on a speech that was made by the university in new mexico president tom pope joy in july 1962 pope joy had stated that an american university is a place of free inquiry postulating questions criticism controversy debate and doubt in all matters social as well as scientific pope joy insisted that because of these reasons the university must remain a place of learning where students and faculty can search for the truth uninhibited among a sampling of other papers in president alton's papers his study of the matter of speech on campus and policies um also included indiana university and the university of minnesota at which student organizations were deemed to be free to invite just about whomever they wanted to speak on campus is obvious from president alton's eventual statement of policy relating to speakers at ohio university they had been influenced by these words ideas and reports of course president alton's policy statement began in big bold caps the constitution of the united states because when you start your decree with the constitution people really have to take you seriously after spending a little time mentioning responsibilities that come with free speech president alton stated that at ohio university we believe that freedom of inquiry and discussion is essential to a student's educational development and we recognize the right of our students to engage in free discussion to hear speakers of their choice and to speak and write without fear of administrative action so as it turns out this is not just the speaker's policy but a document relating to free speech in general on campus and this philosophy of allowing free expression on campus would eventually be tested and constantly modified throughout the 1960s and actually forever since then in the 1964-1965 handbook which of course was published before the academic year 1964-1965 there's only one line about student protest and it actually occurs within the same paragraph as a line about water fighting so it's obvious that at that point university officials were not yet taking the matter of student protests at ohio university all that seriously however after this massive student protest on the college green relating to crowded classrooms and residence halls at ohio things began changing quickly with regard to how much and how many ways the university was willing to accept the free and unmitigated expression of OU student concerns so just one year later during the 1965-1966 academic year with tension growing and boiling over on distant college campuses as well as some at ohio university student disturbances went from being just one sentence in the student handbook to being a subheader unto itself labeled as riots in the next year's handbook ohio administration had quickly redefined the university position on student expression qualifying it with a statement that the university believes that all students should have the right of free assembly and should be provided this opportunity to express their views openly however such public displays of expression can only become meaningful when they are exercised in a responsible and mature manner and that the qualities or of responsible citizenship must be observed at all times in the 1966-1967 handbook just a year later student expression took up well over two-thirds of a special section on university policy as students were encouraged instead of protesting to air their grievances in student newspapers and through the student government and other recognized student organizations so as you can see over the course of just three years in the handbooks university concern over these matters that escalated from a simple sentence in the 1964 student handbook to a full subheading and then to a whole section of a student handbook then a year later in the 1968-69 handbook not only was discussed about how students could protest but also there began to be this reservation system for where students could place banners and where they could place tables when it came to protests this would be a precursor to OU's eventually system of reserving free so-called free speech zones for such events which will come up later in this presentation okay so despite the university's stricter tone in addressing student expression on OU's campus there were still many protests in fact too many during the mid and latter part of the 1960s for us to go into all of them during this presentation so for the sake of brevity i will briefly mention four areas of student activism that raised eyebrows and fomented change on the OU campus i told you i'll get back to the women's rules issue with 850 women staying out past their curfew and protesting the women's hours matter it left the university with very little choice but to back off on the curfews it was not as though the university was going to have 850 students arrested or even send them home and that would have meant refunding their tuition fees and room and board so even though expulsion was mentioned by the administration afterward it never happened and this was the end of the curfews earlier in the presentation a slide came up demonstrating the post raising the issue of discrimination in Athens during the earlier 1960s the tradition of student concern for civil rights continued as numerous rallies took place on campus related to civil rights some of them led by nationally well-known speakers such as the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth who spoke at Ohio University twice during the 1960s meanwhile as OU students participated in several nationally famous civil rights marches as you see here the one from Selma to Montgomery President Vernon Alden cheered them on with his open letter to the newspaper in april 1968 when dr king was assassinated OU students protested in the peaceful style of gondian king by staging a sit-down strike in the middle of courton union in the center of Athens please remember that in those days there was no bypass around Athens and so courton union most likely had heavier traffic flow than that intersection has today at least as far as vehicles went beyond dr king and the national civil rights movement african-americans and other OU students believed that right here on OU's campus black culture and history was not getting a fair deal when it came to what was being taught in the classrooms at OU so on december 3rd 1968 several black students marching to president alden's office and threw down a list of demands which among other things included the establishment of a black studies program consequently after some consideration the outgoing president alden promised that a quarter of a million dollars would be set aside to start a black studies program as early as the fall semester of 1969 and surely enough as you can see from this first brochure advertising the black studies program it was indeed up and running by the fall meanwhile a third protest which had a shorter life but was nonetheless intense in its occurrence was in late january and early february of 1970 over the the raising of tuition and fees at ohio university on the afternoon of january 29th 1970 75 students gathered in front of hanning hall the old post office building to demonstrate against the increase in university tuition and fees at around 3 p.m the group walked from hanning hall to cutler hall where they marched around the building and then entered a lobby of cutler hall filling it completely while chanting we want soul we want soul in reference to the university president claude soul for his part president soul offered to meet with a chosen few of the protesters the next morning to explain the reasons for the increase in tuition fees but the group refused that as an alternative and the next morning as 150 students gathered again around cutler hall and began breaking windows and ignoring a restraining order the ohio highway patrol and athens police arrived as it turned out 46 of the students that were arrested of the 46 students that were arrested in charge of participating in the disturbances 39 of them pleaded guilty and were fined eight were additionally placed on disciplinary probation and 35 of the students received serious reprimands from the university this certainly all sounds serious enough but of course it would just turn out to be merely a warm-up for what was to come in april and may of that spring as we have said earlier as far back as the 1930s students and faculty at ohio were speaking out against american involvement in wars and even in relation to the war in southeast asia there were anti-war protests on the on the ohio campus throughout the mid to late 1960s here's an example of a peaceful student march on court street and acknowledging the national moratorium on the vietnam war in the fall of 1969 and here are students protesting at the soldier's monument during that same moratorium in the fall of 1969 however the war the draft and the rotc related protest activity began to be turned up a notch after april 22nd when nine ohio students staged a so-called sit-in in an rotc class on campus after the protesters refused a request to leave they were arrested and they were banned from campus by edict of the board of trustees and president sol what followed were several days of intense but still relatively peaceful daytime protests as ohio students gathered on the college green to air their grievances in one way or another for instance there was a series of so-called teachings in which university professors brought their classes to the green to address the war the draft student power and other social issues here is the late great and very distinguished professor of english jack mathews leading such a teaching here is a large rally near the west portico memorial auditorium and here are images of the same rally from other perspectives and angles still things remain relatively peaceful on ohio's campus until the last days of april when word came that president nixon had expanded the war in southeast asia to cambodia and Athens and elsewhere across the country especially on the college campuses all hell was about to break loose most of you know the story on may 4th 1970 at kent state university where ohio governor james rhodes had sent the national guard to oversee protests four students were shot and killed and several others were injured by national guardsmen the politics and the aftermath involving kent state and those students and the guard and the governor are not within the purview of this discussion but it was at this point that the demonstration at oh you became more and more violent especially at night when riots took over the green and on the streets of athens and confrontations between campus and local police and students escalated after that the violence intensified night after night through that first and second week of may as you can see an example of it from the scene at the intersection of core street and union street in athens until finally the president's soul announced at three a.m on the morning of may 15th at the university was closed it was at that time that the ohio national guard who had been withheld from the action until the official announcement of the closing had been made marched up from the athens fairgrounds and began oversight of the transition during which ohio students were told to gather their belongings and get off campus within 48 hours remember that this was during academic quarters and so the middle of may was actually the middle of the spring quarter and there was still nearly a month left of the academic term so closing the university at this time was a major event there was not much humor in this but i did find some comic relief a few years ago at a homecoming display one alum said to his wife thank god for those protesters honey if they hadn't closed the university that spring i never would have got through calculus during the summer of 1970 after the smoke had cleared literally and figuratively president claud soul gathered a community workshop with the responsibility of improving conditions and taking a fresh new look at student expression policy which came out of this task force it reminded students that although the university was always open to rational discussion and the preservation of freedom of its members this was only so for as long as the public order and rights of others were not infringed additionally while the university did its thing the state legislature in columbus was busy doing its thing in fall of 1970 house bill 1219 was passed stating that when a student was convicted of an offense of violence that occurred on or near public university in ohio the student would be automatically suspended from admission at any state school in ohio for no less than one calendar year as this little snip from the 1978 1979 ohio university student handbook suggests the university had every intention of following house bill 1219 even seven or eight years after it was passed into ohio law and so by the mid to late 1970s ohio university's regulations about student expression were fully updated and codified into the student conduct rules in the handbooks which outlined which outlined several restrictions that carried with them the maximum penalty of expulsion from the university it should be made clear at this point that not all examples of student expression throughout and student protests throughout the 1970s and beyond were deemed as being in violation of the student code of conduct as far as student expression went for instance in 1979 take back the night of protests mostly by ohio women to bring attention to sexual assault on campus and in the community started as an annual tradition that continues today memorial celebrations honoring the life and work of dr martin luther king and led most often throughout the years by the alpha phi alpha fraternity have taken place year after year on the college green even long before the official holiday was instituted during the early 1990s ohio student in sympathy with the unionized farm workers protested the university serving non-union produce in the dining halls they also supported the actions of local ohio union workers efforts to procure a fair bargaining agreement throughout all of the student protests in 30 years between the closing of the university in may 1970 in the turn of the century the university rules for student expression changed very little however things did change when during the early 2000s university laid out what it referred to as reservable space zones and later quantified the zones under a use of outdoor space official university policy here's the overall map of reservable spaces with darkened areas being the designated locations that could be reserved for public engagement and expression some of these spaces as you could see are far outside where students might usually centrally gather for protests tail great park the aquatic center the stocker picnic areas are example of places where students were unlikely to gather for their voices to be heard here's a map of the more likely spaces near the center of student activity namely on the college green where students were more likely to gather and protest but according to this map protests around the civil war monument was banned and although the west portico memorial auditorium was still a space allowed for public speech there's now a boundary over which the protesters could not spill or risk university reprimand and possible arrest students seeing the space limitations as restriction of their rights disparagingly called those reserve space areas free speech zones suggesting that public space for exercise in their first amendment rights to freely speaking was being severely restricted by the university once again for the sake of time i will not document all the student protests from 2000 through 2018 as you could see from these newspaper clippings at least according to the post every time a protest came up and was thwarted by policy students were concerned about their right to free unfair expression being violated but nothing of note was changing however there were a couple of protests that eventually led to the policy the new policy that we're going to be discussing at the end of this presentation and at this time i'll talk about those the fall of 2014 an incident unrelated to Athens and Ohio University was the reason for a significant peaceful protest on Ohio University's campus on august 9 2014 michael brown jr and 18-year-old black man in ferguson missouri was fatally shot by a white police officer on a missouri grand jury subject only voted not to indict the police officer with any crime oh you students gathered in protest on the fourth floor baker center where they remained protesting until after the building was supposed to be closed at midnight however university officials announced the building remained open until the students were ready to leave citing the university did not want to disrupt at this time the students coming together at this moment to heal and support one another subsequently no arrests were made at the and at about 2 30 a.m remainder of the protesters peacefully left baker center but this is important because of the precedent that students may have thought that it's set for the last incident of student expression that we will mention in this presentation which led directly to the university updating and clarifying its policy on student expression on oh use campus on february 1st 2017 ohio university police arrested about 70 protesters on charges of criminal trespass after they refused to leave a sit in demonstration inside baker university center the arrests were made after protesters ignored university officials complaints that they were that the protesters were negatively impacting baker center operation blocking egress from the building and creating a safety issue explaining why the reaction was different this time that it had been in 2014 when the students were who were protesting the Ferguson shooting were allowed to stay in baker center the police chief reportedly responded the problem is that every time we allow anyone to take up this space in baker center we've got to allow everyone to do it that means that if the Ku Klux Klan came in and sat it in the baker center rotunda we'd have to let them stay if we had previously allowed other people to stay meanwhile the charge was criminal trespassing and some of the arrested students pled guilty while others waited for their day in court as it turned out nearly two months after the incident an Athens municipal county court judge dismissed the remaining charges against the protesters at the request the city law director had been asked by oupd to drop the charges nevertheless ohio administration knew by then that its policy covering student expression was flawed and incomplete and immediately set about to create its most comprehensive student expression policy of all time which after several months of meetings and deliberations and advising and consulting resulted in this affirming that the value of free expression on campus was topmost in their minds but admitting that application of such broad values on college campuses is a complex matter ohio's most recent policy policy zero one point zero four zero regarding student expression on campus was published in july 2018 this new policy stated that among other many other things that while mere can inconveniences created by protest should and would be tolerated by the university genuine disruption of university business would not be tolerated but the document did admit that sometimes defining the difference between the two can be difficult just as president olden's document almost 60 years before had gone to the constitution for basic support so too did the new policy but it added that while almost everyone in the united states is aware of the first amendment rights to free expression not everyone shares a common understanding of what the law requires prohibits or permits and so the document that explains the policy in detail to include several scenarios in which free expression might or might not be limited for instance one issue is content neutrality the university is concerned about that the expression must be written and enforced without regard to the content of the expression next is protected versus protected protest versus civil disobedience meaning that protesters on campus may express their views in many ways so long as they are not disrupted or violate basic use of area rules the policy especially explains that civil disobedience is different from free expression because by definition involves breaking the law and there is no constitutional right to break the law or even to substantially be disruptive and so civil disobedience on campus may result in disciplinary and legal consequences in covering protests in which there were counter protests the new policy stated that when this occurs the university is legally permitted to manage these scenarios to ensure that groups can safely communicate with each other in the surrounding audience and prevent one from physically silencing the other and finally as for so-called hate speech and other offensive speech the policy follows closely the olden 1962 doctrine that Ohio University does not shield its community from speech on the basis that it is uncomfortable wrong or offensive rather Ohio University seeks to prepare each student to engage thoughtfully and passionately with all ideas even with disagreeable views and so here we are with this new policy 208 years from when the expression rules were no calling the president names and no dressing like women and 50 years from student from one student expression caused the closure of the university is this policy enough to cover every manner of student expression ever probably not the way things are developing these days especially technologically and politically perhaps just 20 years from now there will be some new form or method of expression that somehow does not fit under the umbrella of this policy and then the rules will once again have to be modified and whoever is giving this talk will have to add 10 or 12 more slides so in closing I hope that everyone has enjoyed this presentation I know that it has been long but I hope that there was enough in it to provide everyone with a little more knowledge of Ohio University history in at least somewhat of an interesting way please note once again that most of these images that I use in the PowerPoint came from our digital collections that is one of the reasons that I actually chose to do this presentation because I I want to show off the types of things that we have in our collections all you have to do to see any of these wonderful collections is to go to the website and click away there you have the website address for our digital collections in the meantime thanks to all of you who watched on a personal note I will miss seeing so many of you this year at what is usually our big Alden library annual homecoming display I hope that by next year we can do that again but in the meantime have a great homecoming 2020 and please remain safe wherever you are and whatever you are doing